The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1887-06-24
THE GIEsE BABY AND HER FIRST
HOUR AT SCHOOL.

Tomorrow my baby will be my baby no
longer; she is going to school. Her world
is about to widen, her life is about to
broaden, but, | shall lose my baby!
What a short six years they have becnl
They brought her and put her on the pill
low beside me; l put my finger near her
hand and she grasped it. Heaven came
closer to me than [ had ever dared hope it
might. The first day that | sat M nurse
gave her to me and | held her in my arms.
My own little baby! wanted no past. no
future; | was supremacy happy in the
present.
When she lay in her crib and followed
me with her eyes! that was bliss. When
she cooed to me! When she stretched out
her little hands to me! When she laughed
as came near heri All, God is very good
to mothers, and | wondered why such Joy
should come to me. Perhaps there was a
pang of sorrow as she left off her long
clothes. Yet the cunning little feet, the
creeping figure, the aimless steps, the final
walking, these made the change a time of
f~ullness for the mother, and the baby was
still all my own
She has grown in everything except in
getting along without me. Mamma has
been the pivot around which her life has
revoIved. She has COM to me with her
pains, her disappointments, her failures
and her joys. In my ear she has whisper
ed the wonderful thoughts that childhood
lives upon. No question could reach so
high or piercesuch depths but that mamma
could answer it. No danger could threaten
her that mammals arms were not a safe
refuge from. No pain so severe but that
mamma could relieve it.
How many hours in these six years have
we two been together? All, me, we shall
be but one from this on, but we have been
but one thus far. Not any less real to her
than | am, are the hundred heroes of
stories that | have evolved for her; they
seem very real indeed, to me. If ! have
entertained her she has no less been my
"Scheherezade,'' and has related tales fully
as impossible as the Arabian Nights. OF
late she has wandered further away, but
never so far but that she could run quickly
home if her fear was aroused. She has
brought with her thoughts gathered from
other children, but they are brought to be
tried in the cruciblc of mammals judgment
and wisdom. When she ''keeps house. |
often take tea with her, and she cannot
take more pleasure in the ''make believe
than | do.
But 10Y she is going to school! l shall
lose my baby; l have lost her. She will
leave thedoor with kisses on her lips, and
my words in her ear, but she will come
home full Of school, of companions, and
teachers. She will pass into a world where
l am not; where | can only follow at q dis
lance; and she will never again be wholly
mine. Oh, good teacher! she is but one Of
fifty in your room, and, perhaps, in your
eyes, one of the least interesting. But,
| oh, she is my one eve lamb. and heaven
shines on me phi of her eyes. | must share
my kingdom with you. Your praise will
count with her greater Than mine; your
frown will be more fearful than all my
laundering. She was but Il baby an hour
ago, but she is one no longer. | shall pick
mp most of the playthings and put them
away. Tomorrow night she will look on
them with great scorn, she will be 4 baby
no longer, and she will have put away her
baby things.
So I sit here plying myself while | press
her to my heart. She is full of the happiest
anticipations, but l whisper to my aching
heart-I am about to lose my baby.-W1
liam II. Mailer, in tie Toledo Journal.